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Speaker 1: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask

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what you can do for your country.

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Speaker 2: Mister Gerba Schaw, tear down this wall.

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Speaker 1: It's the Rickachet Podcast with Beltieven Hayward and myself James Lylyax.

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Today I from down to Eli Lake about national and

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Downmouth for democracy going away, and about Gaza, What's next

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and Eli's next new project.

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Speaker 3: So let's have ourselves a podcast in Washington. There is

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a new sheriff in town and under Donald Trump's leadership,

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we may disagree with your views, but we will fight

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to defend your right to offer it in the public square.

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Agree or disagree, and trust me. I say this with

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all humor. If American a democracy can survive ten years

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of Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months

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of Elon Musk.

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Speaker 1: Welcome everybody. This is the Ricochet Podcast, number seven and

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twenty eight. If you keeping score, don't know why you would,

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but if you are, then you know. This has been

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a long, long, long series of podcasts that has spanned

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human history as we've known it for the last decade

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or so. And now we find ourselves at a peculiar

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place where how do I put this? Well? We're missing

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Charles CW. Cook. I know, I know, but don't despair.

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He'll be back. He's just unavailable at the moment. But

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you have Stephen Hayward and you have me James Lilacs

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and Minneapolis, where we're due for some snow and apparently

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the temperatures are going to go down into the negative

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region again. We'll be waking up to eighteen below and

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wondering why why why do we not sit in human

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comfort where Stephen is today. Although I'm sure you're going

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to tell me that it's a it's a bit rainy

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or overcast or something like other California paradise version.

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Speaker 4: No, I think what you need to know is that

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fire season is finally over at month's slide season has

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begun in Earnest and this week, so that that's our

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two seasons.

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Speaker 1: Ernest can in Ernest, California. That's up by Island Park,

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isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Right, Well, enjoy your mind slip knot slide nod. Here

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we are facing another Well, you know, I think you

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described it when we were chatting before as a barn

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burner of a speech I'm imagining. JD. Vance wrote that

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himself and I'm also imagining Kamala Harris writing as a

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vice president, writing a speech that she would give to

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European leaders, in which she would, of course advise them

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to be unburdened what had gone before, except of course,

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for the legacy of colonialism and slavery. You burdened that

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you be curid eternally. And it would be full of

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platitudes about working together in the shared mission and the

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rest of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the same blobby

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EU trends national talk that we've been hearing for a

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long time. This Stephen was different.

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Speaker 4: Yes, Well, I'm having flashbacks. Well, I'm thinking of the reaction.

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I'm having flashbacks to the way Spiro agnew so angered

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the media and the left. But I repeat myself. The

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speech was to the annual Munich Security Conference, which is

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a big deal for the international defense and foreign policy elite.

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It generally goes unnoticed in America, but we take it

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very seriously. I kept seeing excerpts of the speech on

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Twitter this morning, and each one of them I kept saying, Wow,

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he said what so he called out Germany for de industrializing,

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and how.

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Speaker 2: Foolish that was.

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Speaker 1: He praised Flis stop right there, what has Germany done exactly?

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Germany previously regarded as the economic powerhouse of Europe. They

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have great industrial capacity in the rest of it. When

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you say de industrializing, what does that mean?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well so well, look, I mean the simple answer

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is they embraced, starting fifteen years ago or more, this

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net zero climate change decarbonization madness. And they've spent over

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a trillion euros, well trillion dollars on this and really

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haven't achieved all that much. In fact, our emissions have

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gone back up and they've started burning coal again to

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keep the lights on. But their electricity prices have soared

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so high that a lot of German manufacturing has cut back,

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starting to move out of the country, are simply shut down,

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and manufacturing employment has plummeted in Germany in the last

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few years. And it's not just Germany. Britain has done

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the same thing. Britain at zero policy has runous electrical

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prices and speaking to my friends in Great Britain, they

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have meters that tell them exactly what their bill is

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right and the way that concentrates the mind on an

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individual residential level.

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Speaker 1: And people should say, well, that's good. They shouldn't be

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They shouldn't be using energy. They should be wearing sweaters

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and sitting inside and you know, using the extra tallow

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for candles. No, that's that's not twenty first century civilization

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as we as we envisioned it. So they have to

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cut back and they don't, and so this means, of

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course a loss of jobs, and this means less economic

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ability to fund the generous welfare state. And then you

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combine that with other social presures such as immigration and

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the rest of it, and you have a recipe for

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a country that is casting its eye right word it

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shall we say, much to the horror of the people

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who believe that it would be another rote installation of

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a left wing center left wing government.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Well, now there's three or four other amazing highlights of

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the speech. He singled out Poland as our best ally

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in Europe on defense because they spend the most of

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any European nation on their defense. That was his way

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of shaming all the countries that aren't living up to

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their obligations. He attacked Europe for censorship and for being

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election de nihilists. In particularly, he mentioned, you know, they

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canceled an election in Romania because the wrong party won

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and then my favorite part of it was I forget

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the context now, but the clip I saw on YouTube

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and I'm trying to find it in the text is

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when he said, I say this with all humor, but

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if we Americans had to put up with ten years

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of scolding from Greta Thunberg, you can put up with

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a few months of Elon Musk. And he paused for

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a moment, waiting for some even just the murmur of laughter,

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dead stone signs from the audience. They did not want

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to hear this, and so had some other things in there.

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And I mean he may have written it himself. He's

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perfectly capable of it. I think I know who might

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have written a large part of the speech, but it's

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just speculation on my part. But there's a new day

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in town. And by the way, second big speech of

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the week where Vance said of the Europeans, well, he

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give a speech on artificial intelligence in Paris a few

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days ago, and essentially his message was borrowing from Khrushchev

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in nineteen fifty nine. Essentially he said, when it comes

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to AI, we in America are going to bury you.

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Speaker 2: So that was fun.

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Speaker 1: Did he did he pound his loafer on the table,

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no Gold do that.

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Speaker 4: But back I did wonder though James, I thought, at

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any minute now he's going to tear off his suit

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and reveal his Captain America Superman crossover costume underneath.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, given how the latest Captain America movie

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is doing, perhaps that's not a wise idea. But if

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he did, you know, if you did morphit with Superman,

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you would have a you would have a nice archetype.

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Going back to Greta Sunburg, we hear he You know,

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nobody wanted to hear that, and they all probably felt

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a little bit of a personal sting because they've all

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at some point had to genuflect towards the goal of

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carbon zero net zero, and Greta Sundberg has been the

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joan of hoisting that banner as she walks around Europe,

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flies bikes, I don't know, scowling at every scowling at

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everybody and shaming them, shaming them. The thing is is

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the reaction that they have is that somehow, and we

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hate to psycho analyze people rooted in shame because you know,

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while I think that there may have been a few

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true believers, I think a lot of people sort of

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made themselves believe that this was necessary to do. It

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was a high minded thing to do, It was a

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saving humanity thing to do. And the fact that it

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intersected with the opportunities for more government power and state control,

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well that was just a happy little frosting on the cake.

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And in their heart of hearts they knew that this

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enterprise was a fool errand as long as China and

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India pump out. But they thought, well, I'm doing a

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virtuous thing. I will be regarded in the future as

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a virtuous person. And so on we go, and with

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less and less and less, I'll be able to fly

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to Davos. But you guys probably are gonna have to

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have some carbon credits at the end of it if

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you want to take you know, you know, some cheap

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jet down to Betha. Is that it? I mean, you

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can't say. But shaming them from following this children's crusade

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seems to me to be overdue.

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Speaker 4: Oh well, absolutely. I mean I have three or four

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field theories about this. One is I think the combination

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of European guilt that goes back decades, not just German guilt,

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The whole European continent has lost their confidence there. They

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feel guilty about their past, right the culture repudiation is

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Roger Scrutin used to call it, and they're sort of

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weak minded. But then on the energy question, they're simply

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illiterate about how energy works and they're unedggable.

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Speaker 2: It seems.

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Speaker 4: You can point out some basic facts about what's going

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on and not going on and how it works, and

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they're just impervious to common sense. They're not unique. That

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describes the governor of California as well.

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Speaker 1: You need to sit them all down and make them

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watch a Billy Bob Thornton Landsman monologue is what you

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need there. You don't need to send Jdvans over there,

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send Tyler Sheridan over there to right.

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Speaker 4: I guess it does tell you something about what's wrong

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with I know, although that's an interesting cultural marker that

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you see a Landsman come on like it has. I

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do think that you know, it's this isn't really new,

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but the Thunberg episode was really a you know, blow

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the lid off. Time magazine, remember made her person of

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the Year for five years back, and you know there's

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a meme that goes around. It pops up regularly on

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social media and elsewhere, and it shows Greta Thunberg about

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how she's this world celebrity. And that shows Judith Curry

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of Georgia Tech, a well renowned climate scientist, lots of publications,

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ran the Department of Climate Science at Georgia Tech for

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many years, but descents from the party line. She never

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gets any publicity because of course she dissents from the

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party line. And that shows you what's wrong with the

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world that someone who really knows stuff gets ignored and

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somebody who knows nothing has made a global celebrity.

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Speaker 1: You know. Part of that we mentioned before, the civilizational

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self loathing has played Europe. So they never got over

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World War One because that completely deal legitimized the idea

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of nationalism, and ever since then, and of course with

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the unfortunate events that happened in the thirties and the forties,

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that compounded the matter. So we have to dissolve all

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of our cultural identities into this transnational entity we call

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the EU, the Common Market, et cetera, et cetera. I

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get that, I get that, but at the same time,

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it's been one hundred and eleven years and it's kind

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of like having a thirty something in your basement, moping

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about the girl he broke up with in his first

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year of college. We've been hearing this civilizational despair and

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lack of self confidence for an awful long time. There's

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a great deal for Europe to be proud of, and

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there's a great deal of its culture from which you

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can draw for hundreds of years in order to forge

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an identity that they ought to be proud of. But

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of course, the minute that you start to say that,

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then people get very nervous, because then you're talking about

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national identities and national identities or the whole problem. When

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he singles up Poland, Poland and Hungary, which some people

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may say is a less savory example, are privict examples

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of European countries that are proud of what they are

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and their folk ways and their language and their culture

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and their food and whatever version of you know, meat

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sausages they have. So yes, some spine would be nice,

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Some spine would be nice. AI, how are we going

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to bury them? What are they doing to cause them

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to slide behind? On that one again?

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Speaker 4: Well, I think the Europeans want to control it and

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regulate it and censor it, and you know, they're worried

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about you all kinds of things, and essentially Advance said

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is we're for this industry. We're going to be the

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tech leaders, and you know, if you want to be

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left behind, that's up to you. So it wasn't it

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wasn't quite the cruiseev we will bear you. I just

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stylized it that way because I think they were shocked.

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I mean, I know some European conservatives were worried about

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AI and think there needs to be some kind of

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regulatory regime, and I don't you know.

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Speaker 1: What does that look like? Though? What does a regulatory

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regime on AI look like?

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Speaker 4: Well, it's some kind of censorship, I'm afraid, but censoring

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what exactly.

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Speaker 1: That's where this gets so vague. I understand when they

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say that there you can have censorship regimes from the

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government that control information on social media and the like,

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and everybody loves that because we can't have people saying

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anything on the internet. My god, people would believe it.

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You know, if we've got to go out there and

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send the little bots to crawl around to make sure

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that nobody is talking about COVID is possibly coming from

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a laboratory, came from a sick panglin in a wet market,

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and if you say otherwise, then you've been banished to

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the to the to the dead zone.

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Speaker 4: Well, I think there are two things that you can

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have legitimate worry about. One is that AI use as

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you know, fancy algorithms to invade people's privacy. That's going

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to happen anyway, because it's it's not just the things

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for the Internet. The other one is, and I've worried

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about this, is there might be some regulation of deep fakes.

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Speaker 2: Right. I actually thought.

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Speaker 4: On this last campaign there would be some deep fake

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videos that would come out of you know, Triumph or

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hair or whoever, and we might believe it for a day,

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and that could be quite disruptive and we're going have

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to figure out how to deal with that. But I

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think censoring preemptively the use of artificial intelligence to create

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visual content is very problematic for all the reasons that

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I think you understand.

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Speaker 1: That's true. But on the other hand, am I a

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deep fake? Because if my cells replace themselves every signal,

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you know, every couple of years or so, like that

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ship a thesis and all that, maybe I'm a deep

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fake of the man that I was ten years ago,

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don't know. All I know is that when it comes

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00:13:32,159 --> 00:13:34,960
to your cells, let's talk about them. Your life, goals

279
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and your career depend on your cells, right, you know,

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constituting the thing that is you and your goals. Well,

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they require productivity. Frankly, well, let's be honest. The aging

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Qualitias Analytics. We're sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. And now

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we welcome back Eli Lake, columnist for the Free Press,

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contributing editor to commentary in the host of a brand

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new podcast we're going to be talking about called Breaking History.

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We'll find out whether or not that means that history

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is sort of dtd D newsflash, or whether or not

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he's being iconoclastic and smashing the old concepts. ELI welcome,

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Thank you so much for having me. Well, we continue

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to move at a great pace in Washington, DC. Breaking, smashing, disrupting,

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I think is what somebody might call it. And the

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judges are striking back and refusing to let things happen,

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barreling towards a constitutional crisis. We're told, let's focus on

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one recent thing. Checking my watch here to see if

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they've abolished the Department of Educate. Nope, not yet. National

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in domand for Democracy. Yeah, that's how I who would

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be opposed to cutting the National Endowment for Democracy? You

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got a piece up with the Free Press and you

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argue the signals quite change in American foreign policy. So

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refresh us, tell us what's going on. Well.

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Speaker 5: The National Dominant for Democracy was created in nineteen eighty

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three by President Reagan and allies in both parties in Congress,

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and it's ours. It's an independent kind of foundation that

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is not part of the executive branch. It makes small,

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bespoke grants. In the nineteen eighties it helped let Well

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Less of Solidarity and other Eastern European freedom fighters, and

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today it helps all kinds of people in Iran and China.

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There have been like all institutions and bad grants that

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were made. It was one that was made to a

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group called the Global Disinformation Index, which is you know,

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I mean the entire anti disinformation industry we can all

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say as a racket. And that got involved a really

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dangerous thing with the state departments. I think it's called

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the Global Information Center or something like that, and that

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was really bad. But when you know, the president of

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the NED who I interviewed, found out about the grant.

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As soon as he found out about it, he ordered

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a review, he severed ties with the organization, and he

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has worked pretty diligently to make sure that the National

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damage for Democracy does not not you know, funding these

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kind of flim flam organizations that fight counter you know,

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that fight disinformation or you know kind of this spoke

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causes like environmental justice under the banner of democracy, which

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I agree there is a kind of bloat in the

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n GA NGO industrial complex. I think a lot of

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that stuff is wasteful and stupid. But what any D

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does is like they don't recruit people, they the people

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come to us. It's basically like these are our real

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allies into talitarian regimes and you don't have to be

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like a full you know, you know, five star neo

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conservative to you know, just say I think it's a

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good idea for some US money to support the green

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shoots of freedom in these places where there is no

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political freedom. That used to be non controversial, but apparently

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now we are hearing that it's you know, you know,

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it's an interesting kind of contradiction or paradox of an

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argument because Elon Musk is argument, they don't do anything,

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they waste a lot of money, so it's too wasteful.

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But then there's a kind of ideological momentum coming from

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the magaverse that says that they're too effective. They're responsible

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for color revolutions and regime change. I support the color revolutions,

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by the way, that's a wonderful thing. But training you know,

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nascent political parties an election law, or supporting kind of

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independent media is not the same as orchestrating these kinds

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of things. This is an expression of the desires of

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the you know, people in these country where there were

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these color revolutions.

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Speaker 1: Okay, couple of points. One, there seems there's this idea

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that if an organization was set up for a good

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purpose under Reagan, that it is therefore destined to be

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with us forever. That you can't get rid of it.

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You just simply have to keep giving it the.

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Speaker 2: Same I don't agree with that. I see we're saying, okay.

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Speaker 1: And the second point is is that even though it's

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funded with you could say it's funded to help like

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well Lesson, we all loved him and we all supported solidarity.

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And the rest of it is that inevitably any of

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these organizations will drift left in time and expands its

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mission so that you will find the money going to

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you know, to environmental or gender based advocacy or the

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rest of it.

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Speaker 2: That's possible, It's certainly possible, but that's not ned right.

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Speaker 1: I'm just saying that that under a democratic administration that

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it's more likely. The third thing would be is that

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surely before nineteen eighty three we had means, and we

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had we had means institutions subterfuge with the rest of it,

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in which we could get resources to people in places

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if we need, if we thought there was some good

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skull dougre that needed to be done well.

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Speaker 5: The CIA used to support political parties in post war

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Europe right to make sure the Communists didn't take over,

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and does that mean then that But that's not what

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the NED does. It's like, this is there was one

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quote that they keep taking out of context of somebody say, well,

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the CIA used to do this, and now we do it,

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and so that's just we're doing the CIA thing out

404
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in the open or something. And I'm like, well, you know,

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the CIA did a lot of things in that period,

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very different than the National Endowment for Democracies. The National

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Endowment for Democracies is a transparent organization that makes grants

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to organizations that request funding. The CIA kind of would,

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you know, by its nature, recruit people. That's a big difference.

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Another big difference is that they have a grant making process.

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They don't hand out bags of cash like you know,

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Bill Colby in early nineteen fifties Italy. I mean, it's

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not the same thing. More importantly, there isn't a wing

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of the NED that all, so you know occasionally you know,

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tries to assassinate foreign leaders or you know, is stealing

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state secrets. It's like, the whole point is that this

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is something that is non controversial in American support. It

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is part of our political DNA. Going back to Thomas Paine,

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who you know, went over to France to support the

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French Revolution, the idea that we believe our founding principles

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are universal and that other people, you know, deserve freedom

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as well, is like, yeah, of course, but I have

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to I want to challenge something that you said earlier,

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because I'm not sure that if the same people that

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are making these arguments today would have supported like Willessa,

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I think they would have said, we're trying to do

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regime change in communist Poland and it's going to lead

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to World War three. That's the argument that I'm getting

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because these people, and unfortunately there have been people involved

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with the Heritage Foundations who have sort of made an

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argument that the National Endowment for Democracy is to quote

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blame interesting choice of words for the Orange Revolution and

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the Maydaon Revolution in Ukraine as if a those are

434
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a bad thing, which and b if it's true, which

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is not true. The credit goes to the Ukrainian people,

436
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and it completely just whitewashes it, airbrushes away the idea

437
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that the Ukrainians might have a problem living under the

438
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thumb of a pro Russian autocrat and I just want to.

439
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I mean, like, and these people want to kick me

440
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out of the conservative movement. I'm sorry, you're kicking yourselves

441
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out of the conservative movement if you can't get your

442
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head around the fact that we believe in certain things.

443
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That that doesn't mean I want to, you know, I

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want to hot war with Russia.

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Speaker 2: I don't.

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Speaker 5: But it's like the idea that Russia had no choice

447
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because of the National Endowment of Democracy to launch a

448
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brutal regime change war of conquest. That's ridiculous.

449
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Speaker 1: No, that that's nonsense, and I want to put But

450
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people are saying this nonsense I know, and they're welcome

451
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:55,640
to do so, and I can call it nonsense. I

452
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am in I was in favor of like VELLSSA. I

453
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was in favor of the revolution absolutely lately. Whether or

454
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not would have you know, would have happened without us

455
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is something we did debate. I'm not saying this because

456
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I have a great dog in this fight, and I'm

457
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I'm giving what I what I intuit people to say,

458
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and I may or may not be correct about it.

459
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I wouldn't would I be particularly bothered if the any

460
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Day continued as an institution and was funded as it was,

461
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and we went on and gave money to people who

462
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came to us. I don't think it's the biggest problem

463
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facing US today, but you are indicating that it represents

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sort of a change in American foreign policy in the

465
00:23:34,559 --> 00:23:36,039
way that we want the world to think of us,

466
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not as somebody to whom you can come for assistance,

467
00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:41,519
but an example you can get around following if you

468
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can figure out on your own. And Steve means.

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Speaker 5: I don't think that it should be kind of stark either,

470
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or if you think in retrospect the war in Iraq

471
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was a horrible blunder. That does not necessarily mean that

472
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we should stop the ie we should stop supporting people

473
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who want a free press in Iran. I mean you

474
00:24:07,279 --> 00:24:12,119
can those are apples and oranges, those are mac trucks,

475
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:17,359
and you know raisins. It's not the same thing. Supporting

476
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:21,319
such groups is something that ay, the people who accept

477
00:24:21,319 --> 00:24:24,000
the money are taking the risk. This is what they want.

478
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:28,400
Why wouldn't we want a foundation to necessarily support them? Now,

479
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:31,160
when you get into the sort of private foundations are

480
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:34,640
sort of related groups like the Surus's Open Society Institute,

481
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:37,920
that is an organization that started you could argue, you know,

482
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:40,799
did a lot of admirable things in the aftermath of

483
00:24:40,839 --> 00:24:43,160
the Cold War in the nineteen nineties and has turned

484
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:46,559
into you know, a kind of giant, you know foundation

485
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:49,920
to support a bunch of really you know, pernicious progressive

486
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:54,039
causes like media matters and disinformation and censorship and all

487
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:55,680
kinds of things I don't like and you don't like,

488
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:57,960
and I don't think people listen to this like but

489
00:24:58,039 --> 00:25:00,519
that's not the National Damage for Democracy. The National Dowind

490
00:25:00,519 --> 00:25:03,240
for Democracy has a number of people on its board

491
00:25:03,279 --> 00:25:07,440
that are Trump allies like Elis Sephonic or people involved

492
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:11,400
with their sister organizations like the International Republican Institute. Tom Cotton,

493
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,559
Marco Rubio was on the board. These are people who

494
00:25:14,599 --> 00:25:17,119
basically are you know, Trump supporters and part of the

495
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:21,119
Trump movement. So the idea that they're you know, the

496
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:23,680
whole thing is bad because Victoria Newland is now on

497
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:27,119
the boarder an applebomb okay, fine, by the way, and

498
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:30,200
applebom was no longer on the board, and you know,

499
00:25:30,279 --> 00:25:32,079
it's a conspiracy theory in a lot of ways, and

500
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:35,519
it's really unfortunate because I do think that it's important

501
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:38,559
even if it's relatively compared to the rest of the budget.

502
00:25:38,559 --> 00:25:40,960
It's a small amount of money, but I do think

503
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,160
that it's valuable to support these and it's also valuable

504
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,799
for us in Washington because oftentimes I've found as a

505
00:25:46,839 --> 00:25:50,240
journalist who wants to cover something in one of these countries,

506
00:25:50,599 --> 00:25:53,720
the National En Dowad for Democracy usually has access to

507
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:55,640
the people who really know what's going on on the ground.

508
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,160
And I know that as a journalists that benefits me.

509
00:25:58,200 --> 00:25:59,759
But I also know that people of the State Department,

510
00:26:00,039 --> 00:26:02,680
you cannot get the same perspective of what's happening in

511
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:06,000
a country just by relying on the people whose staff

512
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,359
and embassy, who deal largely with other government officials. So

513
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:13,480
there is a benefit to this. And once you start

514
00:26:13,559 --> 00:26:17,160
making the argument that this is part of a kind

515
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:19,880
of stealth regime change and that we are interfering in

516
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:23,559
the affairs of countries, that is where I just draw

517
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:25,759
the line. I think supporting people who don't want to

518
00:26:25,799 --> 00:26:29,400
live under desk spots is a good thing, and I

519
00:26:29,559 --> 00:26:31,480
just you know, I can't get my head around the

520
00:26:31,519 --> 00:26:33,440
fact that there appears to be a lot of momentum

521
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:35,440
behind an element of the right that thinks that that is,

522
00:26:36,079 --> 00:26:38,039
you know, part of the New World Order or something

523
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:38,440
like that.

524
00:26:38,599 --> 00:26:41,680
Speaker 4: So Eli, it's Steve Hayward out in Burning, California. Which

525
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,440
we'll come back to what we talk about your podcast too.

526
00:26:44,599 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 2: Thank you.

527
00:26:45,079 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 4: I want to text our listeners to just go one

528
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:49,839
more round with you about the NED. Okay, and then

529
00:26:49,839 --> 00:26:51,359
also I want I want to bring you in on

530
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:53,880
the latest on the Middle East, because you know way

531
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:57,440
more about that than I do. Look, a general observation,

532
00:26:57,559 --> 00:27:01,240
then a couple points about NED and reformsgestion. The general

533
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,680
point is I think we have to understand that with

534
00:27:04,759 --> 00:27:08,559
the shakunaw tactics of the Trump administration, they're going to

535
00:27:08,559 --> 00:27:11,119
be indiscriminate about some of the things they cut and attack,

536
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,119
and they're going to make some mistakes. Okay, that said,

537
00:27:14,839 --> 00:27:17,039
I remember you, by the way, I actually wrote about

538
00:27:17,039 --> 00:27:18,400
this in my own book about Reagan. You know, the

539
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,960
NAD started with that one of his greatest speeches, the

540
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:25,000
Westminster Address in nineteen eighty two. And you also mentioned

541
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:27,400
something briefly a minute ago that's in your article that

542
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:30,839
there is two sub organizations, the Republican Institute and a

543
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:32,119
Democratic Institute.

544
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I actually did some work.

545
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:36,039
Speaker 4: For the Republican Institute back in the eighties when it

546
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:37,279
was all getting started, and.

547
00:27:37,279 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 2: I was a huge fan of the whole effort.

548
00:27:39,599 --> 00:27:41,680
Speaker 4: On the other hand, I've always been inclined to go

549
00:27:41,759 --> 00:27:45,160
along with John O'Sullivan and Robert Conquest that all organizations

550
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:48,319
are not explicitly right wing will become left wing over time.

551
00:27:48,519 --> 00:27:51,119
I think that's what's part of what's went wrong with USAID,

552
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:56,240
which serves you right, okay, generally correct? Yes, yeah, okay.

553
00:27:56,279 --> 00:27:59,920
So here's my reform suggestion. I'll accept all of your

554
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,640
defenses of what NED has done, but my reform suggestion

555
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:06,400
would be this, why do we have the Republican adjunct

556
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:09,920
and the Democratic adjunct? I think that represented the partisan

557
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:13,279
splits on foreign policy between the two parties. You know,

558
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,079
the Democrats in the eighties were very nervous about this

559
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:18,759
kind of thing for opposite reasons of the people on

560
00:28:18,799 --> 00:28:19,920
the right who are opposed to it.

561
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:22,400
Speaker 5: The Democrats of the nineteen eighties sound a lot like

562
00:28:23,079 --> 00:28:27,200
any magotypes today, not all megotypes, I should say, I was,

563
00:28:27,279 --> 00:28:30,200
you know, the ones I'm arguing with on social media, right.

564
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 2: Yep, understood that completely.

565
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 4: My thought is maybe what we ought to do is

566
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:39,559
reconstitute the National Dowmage for democracies and simply let the

567
00:28:39,559 --> 00:28:41,200
two parties go their own ways.

568
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:43,279
Speaker 2: I can see defense. So if the.

569
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,559
Speaker 4: Democrats want to support gender education in Pakistan, let them

570
00:28:46,799 --> 00:28:50,599
and be transparent about it. And Republicans want to.

571
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,519
Speaker 2: Support like two gender only education, let's support that.

572
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,119
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, or you know, I mean, of course there's

573
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:58,240
the argument you raise, which you will skip over now

574
00:28:58,279 --> 00:29:01,039
about you know, what kind of democratic efforts do you

575
00:29:01,079 --> 00:29:03,559
want to support overseas? And I know there's people say none,

576
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:07,039
and okay, anyway, that's my reform suggestion is why don't

577
00:29:07,079 --> 00:29:09,039
we just be more honest and direct about this.

578
00:29:09,319 --> 00:29:13,559
Speaker 5: I'm open to that, and I agree like the broader

579
00:29:14,559 --> 00:29:19,440
international NGO space is rife with nonsense and corruption.

580
00:29:19,759 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 2: One that's a real problem, by the way, but it's

581
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:24,359
not also with the USAID.

582
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:27,279
Speaker 5: I remember when I was stationed in Egypt in two

583
00:29:27,319 --> 00:29:30,039
thousand and five. In two thousand and six, I did

584
00:29:30,039 --> 00:29:33,359
a piece about a kind of editor of an Egyptian

585
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:37,839
newspaper who had written a column about, you know, endorsing

586
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:41,400
this Kakamami David Irving view that the Holocaust was at

587
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:43,640
over state and everything like that. It was a kind

588
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,480
of typical fair. And what stood out to me is that,

589
00:29:46,559 --> 00:29:48,880
you know, earlier in his career, this is two thousand

590
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,880
and five, so like in the early eighties, he'd gotten

591
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,119
a USAID grant to like learn journalism in America, and

592
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:56,599
I was thinking, like, oh, wow, you guys really know

593
00:29:56,599 --> 00:29:59,400
how to pick them. So, you know, yeah, I yeah,

594
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:01,880
there's a lot of problems right now, and you know,

595
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,079
some of the things that we're learning about what USAID

596
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:08,000
supported is you know, shut it down. As far as

597
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,440
I'm concerned, I agree, although I'm sure there's plenty of

598
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:13,880
good things with USAID as well, and it can be

599
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:17,079
an important tool of US foreign policy.

600
00:30:17,119 --> 00:30:17,319
Speaker 2: You know.

601
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, like we're gonna have to we got to deal

602
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:24,000
with that O. Sullivan conquest problem, that's certainly true, and

603
00:30:24,079 --> 00:30:27,200
we have to deal with a hyper radicalized Democratic Party

604
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:29,799
today that went had just got out of power, and

605
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,640
their fingerprints and tentacles are all over government and you

606
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:33,400
got to root it out.

607
00:30:33,839 --> 00:30:34,279
Speaker 2: Agreed.

608
00:30:34,759 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 5: I just think any D is the wrong target and

609
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,759
it is being and it is a target in part

610
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:46,640
because of a lot of just kind of you know,

611
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:50,640
I ill thought out conspiracy theories that have gained enormous

612
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,000
traction a lot of this is supported, by the way,

613
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,240
by people who would never you would never consider to

614
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:57,799
be conservative. It was like, this is a big hobby

615
00:30:57,799 --> 00:31:00,359
horse for something known as the Gray Zone, which is

616
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:05,160
Max Blumenthal's site, which is basically is like the you know,

617
00:31:05,359 --> 00:31:08,839
it's it's, it's it's the it's like a propaganda arm

618
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:13,440
of every anti American tyranny and terrorist group. So that's

619
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:15,240
what we're dealing with. And my point is like, is

620
00:31:15,279 --> 00:31:16,759
that is that now going to be part of the

621
00:31:17,119 --> 00:31:21,599
coalition Because I'm like largely see myself as somebody who

622
00:31:22,359 --> 00:31:25,279
I have a lot of criticisms of Trump, but I

623
00:31:25,359 --> 00:31:28,119
think he's much better than the alternative of a party

624
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,680
that weaponized the Justice Department against their political opponents, that

625
00:31:31,799 --> 00:31:35,960
propped up a senile, incompetent old man and claimed he

626
00:31:36,079 --> 00:31:38,319
was you know, sharp as attack.

627
00:31:38,759 --> 00:31:40,279
Speaker 2: I mean, we can go through the list, so.

628
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 5: Like you know, I'm I'm now like really hoping that

629
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,119
he gets it right. But I don't want to share

630
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:50,880
a Vauxhall with the Gray Zone or people who are

631
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:54,200
these kind of lunatic conspiracy theorists who you know, think

632
00:31:54,279 --> 00:31:56,920
Apak is running everything. There's people shouldn't be in a

633
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:58,839
in a decent political coalition.

634
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,119
Speaker 1: But people in the center who who would agree with

635
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:04,279
you that the NED serves a function and ought to

636
00:32:04,359 --> 00:32:08,319
be paired down and focused on that function are probably

637
00:32:08,359 --> 00:32:09,799
at the end of the day. And I hate that phrase.

638
00:32:09,839 --> 00:32:12,079
I'm very sorry going to say, well, let it go,

639
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:14,759
because to fight for it is to then get on

640
00:32:14,799 --> 00:32:17,680
the other side of the barricades and say no, this

641
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:20,440
one actually has to stay, because I mean, right now,

642
00:32:20,799 --> 00:32:24,200
the left, the progressives, the center left are at the

643
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:26,440
point where they have to defend USAID, and they have

644
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:28,079
to defend the waste in the treasury, and they have

645
00:32:28,119 --> 00:32:30,880
defend all these things because they if they give up,

646
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:34,440
then they seed to the other side the idea that

647
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:36,200
there's lots of waste and stuff that they can pair

648
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:37,519
a waste. So they have to fight that. You have

649
00:32:37,599 --> 00:32:41,200
to say, you can't cut USAID because it is because

650
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,519
there's an old woman in Thailand who is dependent upon

651
00:32:43,559 --> 00:32:45,519
it for her oxygen and she will die. Oh she's

652
00:32:45,559 --> 00:32:47,920
died already, I mean, so they got to fight that.

653
00:32:48,559 --> 00:32:50,599
And if guys on the right say.

654
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,319
Speaker 6: As good as the NED is and has done some

655
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:56,519
good things, I'm not gonna that's not the foxhole in

656
00:32:56,519 --> 00:32:59,480
which I'm going to expire because we need rotten branch

657
00:32:59,519 --> 00:33:01,079
and if this is one of the good roots, will

658
00:33:01,079 --> 00:33:01,720
then so be it.

659
00:33:01,799 --> 00:33:04,319
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's what I think is gonna That's fine.

660
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:08,839
Speaker 5: I'm a journalist. My fidelity is to calling it like

661
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:12,119
I see it. So I understand if that's your view,

662
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:13,519
and you're a member of Congress and you want to

663
00:33:13,519 --> 00:33:16,039
save your powder and keep your powder dry for the

664
00:33:16,079 --> 00:33:19,400
fight that you think is going to be mattering more fine, okay,

665
00:33:19,559 --> 00:33:22,759
I mean, okay, but at a certain point, I just

666
00:33:22,799 --> 00:33:24,440
think you need to I wanted to put out because

667
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:28,240
I just see there is so much like wrong information

668
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,799
about the NED. They're fighting a kind of phantom and

669
00:33:31,839 --> 00:33:34,359
I worry that if people like that have the ear

670
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:36,440
of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, then you know, what

671
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,680
else are they going to say? I mean, I'm kind

672
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:41,160
of you know, I'm not going to try it. I'm

673
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,039
trying not to freak out of things. But why would

674
00:33:43,079 --> 00:33:47,079
we kind of before negotiations with Russia even begin, concede

675
00:33:47,079 --> 00:33:49,680
everything that Russia would want, Like, I mean, just to

676
00:33:49,759 --> 00:33:51,279
kind of give an example of what we saw this

677
00:33:51,319 --> 00:33:55,000
week in Europe with with Defense Secretary hexath.

678
00:33:55,599 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 4: So Eli, let's switch scars to the Middle East. And

679
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:01,000
you know, a minute ago, I use the imagery of

680
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,160
shock and awe that we've been using for thirty years

681
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:05,720
now since the First Gulf War when I look at

682
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:09,719
Trump in so many areas, but especially on the Middle East. Instead,

683
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:12,519
I want to shift to the big bang. I mean,

684
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,599
who would have ever thought that anybody, let alone a

685
00:34:15,639 --> 00:34:17,440
president of the United States would say, you know, we

686
00:34:17,519 --> 00:34:19,360
just ought to move everybody out to Gaza, to other

687
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:23,559
Arab countries and rebuild the place into something else. I mean,

688
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:27,320
and you know, utterly heedless of the predictable response that

689
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,360
he's calling for ethnic cleansing and other nonsense. But still

690
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:34,760
I can't imagine any other responsible politician ever suggesting such

691
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:36,400
a thing. What do you make of all that? And

692
00:34:36,559 --> 00:34:38,760
I mean, is this a shaking up of things and

693
00:34:39,559 --> 00:34:43,599
challenging the foundations of fifty years of settled attitudes? Is

694
00:34:43,639 --> 00:34:45,079
this a good or a bad thing or somewhere in

695
00:34:45,079 --> 00:34:46,920
the middle. How does Eli Lake size it up?

696
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 5: I think it's a good thing to move the overturn

697
00:34:51,039 --> 00:34:53,920
window on this. I don't think it's a I don't

698
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:57,280
think that it's necessarily I don't know that it'll happen.

699
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:03,280
But I think it's the the idea that before Trump

700
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:07,199
comes into office, the big plan was they'll be Saudi

701
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:10,599
Israeli normalization, but you're gonna have to make peace. And yeah,

702
00:35:10,599 --> 00:35:12,039
it looks like God is going to have to be

703
00:35:12,159 --> 00:35:18,239
still run by Hamas. Is totally unacceptable, and I really

704
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:20,239
do think at a certain point the message to the

705
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:21,599
Palestinian people has.

706
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 2: To be this.

707
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:29,159
Speaker 5: Unless you start turning on these thugs and making it

708
00:35:29,199 --> 00:35:31,440
clear that this is not how you want to live.

709
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,320
And some of this is they they rule buy fear,

710
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:37,039
and they rule buy you know, they will buy coercion.

711
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:40,239
So it's it's harder than said and done. But like,

712
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:44,760
you can't have the leadership of the Palestinian cause cannot

713
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:50,559
be people who aspire to genocide the state of Israel

714
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:57,119
full stop. And you know, obviously shame on on the

715
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,360
on the the rubs and moral idiots on campus who

716
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:02,320
consider Hamas to be a kind of freedom fighter or

717
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:05,760
resistance organization. But you can't. But you can't have like

718
00:36:06,039 --> 00:36:09,719
just well, we'll work around it. And you know, the

719
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:13,840
leadership of the Palestinians is terrible right now, and it's

720
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,239
nonsense to think that there can be a state if

721
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:22,320
that leadership continues in perpetuity, and by suggesting maybe people leave,

722
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:24,599
which is what usually happens when there is a horrible

723
00:36:24,639 --> 00:36:27,800
war that, by the way, was started by the Palestinian side.

724
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 2: Of course, we know.

725
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:34,119
Speaker 5: That lots of popular there's five million, five million Ukrainians

726
00:36:34,119 --> 00:36:36,519
are living in Europe right now. How many refugees came

727
00:36:36,519 --> 00:36:38,480
from the Syria war. So the idea that there are

728
00:36:38,519 --> 00:36:40,559
going to be refugees from a war because the place

729
00:36:40,599 --> 00:36:45,559
is uninhabitable is not terribly controversial. Trump did say eventually

730
00:36:45,639 --> 00:36:47,639
you can move back, but it's going to take a

731
00:36:47,639 --> 00:36:50,159
long time to try to rebuild it. That to me

732
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:54,079
is like non controversial. And you know, I understand, I

733
00:36:54,119 --> 00:36:57,159
know the history of this conflict very well. But remember

734
00:36:57,159 --> 00:37:00,519
in two thousand and five Israel left Gaza and what

735
00:37:00,559 --> 00:37:04,400
they got in exchange was Hamas. So the idea that

736
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:09,559
Israel really deeply wants to reoccupy Gaza, some Israelis probably do,

737
00:37:09,679 --> 00:37:11,920
and they say that, but I don't think that that's

738
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:13,760
really that the game plan of the state is at

739
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:16,039
this point. I think it's just that you need to

740
00:37:16,079 --> 00:37:19,480
have a strategy for you cannot have hamas in charge,

741
00:37:19,519 --> 00:37:22,960
and that the propaganda play that we saw that prompted

742
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:26,760
these initial outrage from Trump and when he said, you know,

743
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:29,639
we're not going to take this much anymore from nearly

744
00:37:29,679 --> 00:37:33,079
a week ago kind of proves the point those people

745
00:37:33,079 --> 00:37:37,079
cannot remain full stop. I mean, I think the offer

746
00:37:37,119 --> 00:37:41,840
should be bullet in the head or elba for hamas

747
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:42,599
I'm talking about.

748
00:37:42,679 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a hawk on this matter.

749
00:37:45,159 --> 00:37:47,559
Speaker 4: And as we are talking, we are twenty four hours

750
00:37:47,559 --> 00:37:50,639
away from supposedly another round of hostage releases. It's not

751
00:37:50,679 --> 00:37:53,599
clear how many, but I don't know. My opinion is,

752
00:37:53,639 --> 00:37:55,719
and I'll just stake this and get your reaction. My

753
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,400
opinion is Israel needs to finish them off. The war

754
00:37:58,519 --> 00:37:59,239
needs to resume.

755
00:38:00,159 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 5: Well, Israel eventually does have to finish them off. But

756
00:38:03,639 --> 00:38:07,280
if there is a way by floating this idea of like, well,

757
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,039
you're gonna have to take hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Egypt, Jordan,

758
00:38:10,199 --> 00:38:15,119
other places like that, or you know, if that's if

759
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:17,400
that becomes part of the conversation, even if it's a

760
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,760
threat lurking in the background, then maybe you begin to

761
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,440
open up space. Because the main thing that has to

762
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:25,559
happen here is that the Kataris need to be told

763
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:31,199
that you've got to make a decision here and you

764
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:35,840
know you need to use your influence to get the

765
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,679
remaining hostages back and and to take care of the

766
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:41,559
leadership of AMAS. Yeah, and if you don't, we'll move

767
00:38:41,599 --> 00:38:44,239
our base and you know what, we'll leave you well,

768
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:46,320
you know, we'll let the Iranians take care of you.

769
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,360
Speaker 4: Because that's really yeah, I'm sorry, I'm really glad you

770
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:51,280
said that. I mean, all the talk is always while

771
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:53,519
they're on you know, they're behind all this, that's all true.

772
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,199
But I've been saying exactly what you've said. We need

773
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:59,360
to lean hard on the Kataris, to step up their

774
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:01,320
game and be hat ourselves and threaten them.

775
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 2: By the way, I thought the same thing you did.

776
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,079
Speaker 4: I thought maybe I was being crazy saying we threatened,

777
00:39:05,079 --> 00:39:07,800
we pull out our military installations and other things and

778
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:08,440
punish them.

779
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:12,039
Speaker 2: And I'm all for that. Yeah, no, no, no, no, yeah,

780
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:14,280
threat threat, threat, And do.

781
00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 1: You think that do you think there's any consequence in

782
00:39:16,039 --> 00:39:18,199
the long run to the world realizing that the countries

783
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:22,480
around the Palestinians don't want them. He just I mean, really,

784
00:39:22,519 --> 00:39:24,760
I mean Jordan, who can can you know, look both

785
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:28,159
ways and say, you know, technically, you know, we're kind

786
00:39:28,159 --> 00:39:30,519
of Palestinians. You know, we don't have room for anymore

787
00:39:31,039 --> 00:39:33,039
in Egypt. No, we don't want them because they goes trouble.

788
00:39:35,039 --> 00:39:37,199
I think the world would look at that and blink

789
00:39:37,199 --> 00:39:39,119
a couple of times and then move right along to

790
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:42,760
blaming Israel for the continued existence of everything that befalls

791
00:39:43,079 --> 00:39:43,920
the people in Gaza.

792
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:46,119
Speaker 5: Well, the only thing I would just say to the

793
00:39:46,159 --> 00:39:49,119
counter that is that we saw into the first Trump

794
00:39:49,159 --> 00:39:53,239
administration the expansion of the Abraham the Abraham Accords. So

795
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:57,159
at a moment when you know the elite opinions of

796
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,960
Europe and on our campuses and so forth, you know,

797
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,119
sounds an awful lot like what we might hear from

798
00:40:05,159 --> 00:40:10,639
Black September. There is also this sort of realization in

799
00:40:10,679 --> 00:40:16,119
the region itself that you know, this nearly century old

800
00:40:16,159 --> 00:40:19,239
struggle to either prevent the birth of a Jewish date

801
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:22,599
or to destroy it has failed and we have to

802
00:40:22,639 --> 00:40:25,559
move on. That I think has sort of sunk in

803
00:40:25,599 --> 00:40:28,400
at least at the leadership level in the region. And

804
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:32,400
that's a good thing. So, I mean, I don't know

805
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:34,480
what to do about. But then then again, it's like,

806
00:40:34,559 --> 00:40:36,239
I mean, you know, getting back to an earlier thing.

807
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:38,079
And this is a problem also of the corruption of

808
00:40:38,079 --> 00:40:41,679
the international NGO complex, the United Nations and all these

809
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:44,079
sorts of things that they just are kind of committed

810
00:40:44,079 --> 00:40:48,119
to this idea of propping up these these you know,

811
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:52,000
two bit genesider terrorists and amas.

812
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:53,719
Speaker 2: Screw them.

813
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:57,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, Eli, last subject for today, I want to

814
00:40:57,320 --> 00:40:59,480
talk about your podcast a bit Breaking His Thank you.

815
00:40:59,639 --> 00:41:02,239
By the way, your two latest episodes are really timely

816
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:05,239
for me. I'm teaching the presidency this semester, so your

817
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:07,719
episode and Andrew Jackson will be of great interest. And

818
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:10,800
of course I live in Burning, California. So so first

819
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:12,719
of all, I guess do this for listeners to get

820
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:15,599
a general flavor sort of what's your theory, what's your approach?

821
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,280
What does the breaking part of breaking history mean? Is

822
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:19,280
that the right question for too?

823
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:19,599
Speaker 2: Yeah?

824
00:41:19,599 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 5: I think I wrote an AI song called We've All

825
00:41:24,519 --> 00:41:28,679
Been here Before, simply led mix eighties music fans will

826
00:41:28,679 --> 00:41:35,800
get the reference, and that song chorus is I know

827
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:40,039
it seems we have no hope, we can't can't take

828
00:41:40,079 --> 00:41:42,639
it anymore. But if you know our history, We've all

829
00:41:42,639 --> 00:41:46,719
been here before. And the next versus America has been

830
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,760
on the brink of going straight to hell, the Civil

831
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:51,559
War and Watergate, the War of eighteen twelve.

832
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:53,119
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's the song.

833
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:58,079
Speaker 1: But that you rhymed Hell and twelve, I did you rhymed?

834
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,559
I'm going to write an AI version of cole Porter

835
00:42:02,679 --> 00:42:06,519
to to to Find You. And this is why Europe,

836
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:11,920
there artistic Sensibilities, wants to censor and control AI because

837
00:42:12,599 --> 00:42:17,760
because people will create songs anyway. Okay, I'm kidding you.

838
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,159
Speaker 5: A song it's good, I will hear, I'll But but

839
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:25,440
the point, the point I make is that usually we

840
00:42:25,599 --> 00:42:29,519
are kind of, you know, captured to something historians called presentism,

841
00:42:29,559 --> 00:42:31,039
which is we just think we are living through the

842
00:42:31,039 --> 00:42:34,159
worst thing in the world and it's kind of remarkable.

843
00:42:34,159 --> 00:42:37,000
And I've always been I love reading history, and I

844
00:42:37,039 --> 00:42:41,000
approach history as a journalist. So I love not having

845
00:42:41,039 --> 00:42:43,559
the obligation of being an historian because I know I'm not,

846
00:42:43,679 --> 00:42:46,880
and I have great respect and admiration for people who

847
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:49,679
are trained historians. I don't claim to be one, but

848
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:51,639
I do claim that as somebody who reads a lot

849
00:42:51,639 --> 00:42:54,920
of history and loves history, loves literature, and I approach

850
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:57,199
it as a journalist and I love to find new things.

851
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:01,079
So you know what I did with the sort of

852
00:43:01,119 --> 00:43:03,760
episode on California Burning is I asked the question of like, well,

853
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:07,320
you know, it kind of reveals just how utterly incompetent

854
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:10,800
and desiccated the ruling you know, Mono Party of California,

855
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:11,679
the Democrats have been.

856
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:13,280
Speaker 2: Where did this start?

857
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 5: And what I tell is the story of the nineteen

858
00:43:15,559 --> 00:43:19,000
seventy five mayoral election in San Francisco, which proved that

859
00:43:19,079 --> 00:43:23,039
you could have a coalition, as I say, you know,

860
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:25,360
learn to stop fighting the freaks and invited them into

861
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:29,599
city hall. And that's what happened because part of that

862
00:43:29,639 --> 00:43:33,239
coalition included the Reverend Jim Jones of the People's Temple

863
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:36,480
and one of the worst sociopaths in the twentieth century.

864
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:41,159
And this is and because I don't want to give

865
00:43:41,159 --> 00:43:44,800
too much away, but anyway, because of events, they never

866
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:49,079
really had a reckoning for this sort of radical tolerance.

867
00:43:49,159 --> 00:43:53,599
And we see the and the people who survived that

868
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:57,239
era went on to become the powerbrokers of the state politics.

869
00:43:56,719 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 2: In many ways.

870
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:02,360
Speaker 5: Diane Feinstein, Willie Brown, you know, and you know, San

871
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:05,039
Francisco is still in my view is that is the

872
00:44:05,039 --> 00:44:07,039
big city that kind of really runs the state. In

873
00:44:07,079 --> 00:44:09,000
a lot of ways, we see Gavin Newsom was the

874
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:13,960
mayor of San Francisco, Kamala Harris was mentored by Willie Brown.

875
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:19,559
So that's the That's the story that I tell and

876
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:23,000
I kind of, you know, I try to I don't.

877
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:24,159
Speaker 2: Tell it ideologically.

878
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:26,039
Speaker 5: I tell it more as a kind of this is

879
00:44:26,039 --> 00:44:28,639
I try to give credit to like, you know, I

880
00:44:28,639 --> 00:44:30,880
don't think that we should go back to an era

881
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:35,159
when the police could you know, arrest you know, two

882
00:44:35,599 --> 00:44:39,079
gay men for holding hands or something like that. But

883
00:44:39,199 --> 00:44:42,159
at the same time, there was a sense that I mean,

884
00:44:42,199 --> 00:44:44,440
I see a real similarity, for example, in the police

885
00:44:44,519 --> 00:44:47,960
chief that George Mosconi brings in who effectively kind of

886
00:44:48,199 --> 00:44:52,039
legalizes prostitution by saying we're not going to enforce it anymore.

887
00:44:52,199 --> 00:44:54,199
He did it with a district attorney that also won.

888
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:57,079
That reminds me very much of like the decisions of

889
00:44:58,119 --> 00:45:01,360
gascoone in Los Angeles and Chessubodina say we're not going

890
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:04,800
to prosecute shoplifting, so you have a shoplifting epidemic, and

891
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:07,599
it's all I see it as a very California thing,

892
00:45:07,639 --> 00:45:11,199
which is that the road to ruin is paved with

893
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:14,960
the most noble intentions, like we're trying to save an

894
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:18,199
indigenous milk veg weed, so we can't you know, clear

895
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:21,519
the forest road to build steel instead of wooden poles

896
00:45:21,519 --> 00:45:24,079
for the electric lines. You know, we want to help

897
00:45:24,119 --> 00:45:26,880
the homeless, and they're human beings too, and these unhoused

898
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:30,559
citizens have rights. Wonderful, but like, as you're doing all

899
00:45:30,599 --> 00:45:34,639
of that, you're either allowing tense cities, which is what happened,

900
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:39,519
or you're spending gobs of money to hire caseworkers that

901
00:45:39,559 --> 00:45:42,599
work for NGOs for the city, you know, at like

902
00:45:42,679 --> 00:45:45,079
fifty sixty thousand dollars a year, where you can try

903
00:45:45,119 --> 00:45:48,639
to give like motel rooms and set people up and

904
00:45:48,679 --> 00:45:52,000
be life coaches for homeless people and vagrants. And what

905
00:45:52,039 --> 00:45:53,760
I'm saying is that this is like an example of

906
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:55,519
a kind of very California mentality.

907
00:45:56,079 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 4: Like well, right, well, you put your finger on something

908
00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:01,239
that's bothered me for a long time as a native Californian.

909
00:46:01,679 --> 00:46:05,480
It used to be that southern California LA dominated, or

910
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,920
at least competed with the Bay Area to dominate California politics.

911
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:11,639
But that's because you know, LA forty fifty years ago

912
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:14,800
you had Hollywood Aerospace and a lot of manufacturing.

913
00:46:15,119 --> 00:46:15,320
Speaker 2: Yep.

914
00:46:15,519 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 4: Now it only has Hollywood and Silicon Valley came. And now,

915
00:46:18,599 --> 00:46:21,480
as you say, San Francisco dominates the state even though

916
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:24,719
the LA and Southern California population is bigger. And this

917
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:27,960
is an interesting, really interesting phenomenon.

918
00:46:28,199 --> 00:46:33,280
Speaker 5: So my daughter, I'm watching my daughter. I'm single parenting. Everybody,

919
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:33,880
say hi to.

920
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 1: Norah before we let you go, lean back a little

921
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:45,199
bit so I can see your your daughter absolutely on

922
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:46,679
what your T shirt is because you always have a

923
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:47,760
rock band T shirt. Here.

924
00:46:48,039 --> 00:46:49,559
Speaker 2: This is not a rock bando. He is a rock

925
00:46:49,559 --> 00:46:50,280
star theater.

926
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 1: Oh right, oh there we go. Okay, well, you know,

927
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:56,639
I don't know, give him a heavy metal makeover or

928
00:46:56,639 --> 00:47:02,559
something like that Jean Simmons co piece and h vidego.

929
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:05,920
Give him a heavy metal klezmer Ai version of the

930
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:07,800
song and uh and we will love to see it.

931
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:10,199
Speaker 2: Assignment assignment taking, good sir.

932
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:13,360
Speaker 1: I'm glad you understand the assignments you use. The cliche

933
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:15,440
that everybody is now using that I cannot wait for

934
00:47:15,519 --> 00:47:19,119
it to die. Now. What we do want to live forever, however,

935
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:20,800
is your podcast and everybody.

936
00:47:20,599 --> 00:47:21,760
Speaker 5: Well, let me just tell you. Can I can I

937
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:25,960
tell the listeners? Oh yes, Uh, next episode drops on Wednesday.

938
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:31,760
Who Shot John? The story of JFK conspiracy theorist. I'm

939
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:36,480
not a conspiracy theorist on this, but okay, so like

940
00:47:36,519 --> 00:47:39,880
somebody is. But uh, but it's a it's a it's

941
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:42,559
a it's a great it's a great episode that looks

942
00:47:42,559 --> 00:47:46,079
at sort of the evolution of the various conspiracy theories

943
00:47:46,119 --> 00:47:49,199
into JFK, the fact that Trump is going to declassify

944
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:53,760
the final State secrets regarding JFK and everything else, and

945
00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:56,960
you know, the role particularly played by a nineteen ninety

946
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:58,880
one film by Oliver Stone called JFK.

947
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:03,280
Speaker 1: Don't Get Me Started. I saw that at a Washington

948
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:08,599
premiere actually with Oliver Stone and Sam Donaldson. And afterwards

949
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:11,519
I'm in I'm in the men's room with Sam Donaldson

950
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:15,159
and Oliver Stone, you know, two alpha dogs in the

951
00:48:15,199 --> 00:48:19,840
small kennel and wow. Yeah. And I couldn't say anything

952
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:22,320
to Stone because I thought it was all stalking nonsense,

953
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:24,639
but interestingly shot. And so we talked about the way

954
00:48:24,639 --> 00:48:27,400
that the opening sequence goes from the four point three

955
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:29,679
aspect ratio of television and then there's the gun shot

956
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:31,920
and it opens up to wide screen sixteen to nine,

957
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:34,079
and how that is a nice transition, you know, a

958
00:48:34,119 --> 00:48:37,239
nice little conversation. But I didn't want to say, Jim Garrison,

959
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:40,880
are you fret? So anyway, what I'm saying is.

960
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:43,880
Speaker 5: We play some great clips from Jim Garrison and we

961
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:44,960
get into his linacy.

962
00:48:45,119 --> 00:48:47,239
Speaker 1: Yes, with all of the things that have been written

963
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,239
and said, including of course you know Posner and and

964
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,760
all the books that have exhaustively come down on.

965
00:48:52,679 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 2: One side of Poser. We interviewed Poser.

966
00:48:54,519 --> 00:48:57,360
Speaker 1: By the way, Posner is great and and vincent and

967
00:48:57,400 --> 00:48:59,519
you know all that. So what I'm telling the audience is,

968
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:02,800
if Eli is giving you this take on one of

969
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:06,159
the most told stories of the twentieth century, you know,

970
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:09,760
he's got some interesting little thing that you haven't heard before,

971
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:11,480
or a way of putting it that you hadn't thought

972
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,559
about before. So listen breaking the strail of the podcast.

973
00:49:14,639 --> 00:49:17,719
And people can find it on what particular network.

974
00:49:17,639 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 5: Oh, it's well, it's a free press podcast, but you

975
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,800
can get it on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.

976
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:26,079
We got it everywhere. It's a it's really great. I'm

977
00:49:26,199 --> 00:49:28,039
very proud of the work and and thank you for

978
00:49:28,119 --> 00:49:28,840
asking me about it.

979
00:49:29,159 --> 00:49:31,280
Speaker 1: That's great. And we also appreciate the money that you

980
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:34,960
paid us to push the podcast. I just and I

981
00:49:35,039 --> 00:49:37,280
will note that I cashed it immediately because it was

982
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:39,480
from the NED and I figured he they may not

983
00:49:39,559 --> 00:49:41,039
be able to honor this anytime soon.

984
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:43,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, funny.

985
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 1: All right, thanks for joining us. We look forward to

986
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:47,639
talking to you again bybe all right.

987
00:49:47,639 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 2: Thank you.

988
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the thing is we're talking before about how

989
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:55,320
somebody's got to do something something about the hamas leadership

990
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:59,519
and gutter and then the rest of it. Anyway, the

991
00:49:59,559 --> 00:50:01,760
point that I trying to make was to segue into

992
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:05,639
a commercial, and this was like an opportunity long gone. Frankly,

993
00:50:05,679 --> 00:50:10,840
I'm just going to tell you this HR right. You know,

994
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:15,159
if there's a lot of HR scratching of heads going

995
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on in Washington, DC, how do we outboard these people,

996
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how do we fire these people? What do we do?

997
00:50:18,599 --> 00:50:18,920
Speaker 2: What do we do?

998
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:21,519
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999
00:50:21,519 --> 00:50:24,199
probably don't have bamboo. Now a question for the business

1000
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1001
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1002
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1026
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hr for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. Let's gave it

1027
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:54,599
a few more minutes here, Yes you.

1028
00:51:54,639 --> 00:51:56,719
Speaker 4: Can, can I I mean, before you move on, can

1029
00:51:56,760 --> 00:52:00,000
I just say something about something nice about Sam Donald's

1030
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:03,599
I mean, I can understand the order of being stuck

1031
00:52:03,679 --> 00:52:07,320
next to the Yearninal between him and Oliver Stone. And

1032
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:09,280
I always used to rage at Sam Donaldson and I

1033
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:12,239
watched him in the eighties on TV. But I may

1034
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:13,840
have a worse circumstance.

1035
00:52:13,320 --> 00:52:13,679
Speaker 1: By the way.

1036
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:16,400
Speaker 4: I was once stuck sitting next to Lannye Davis on

1037
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:18,840
a coast to coast plane flight. He was, you know,

1038
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:21,480
Clinton's White House Council. It was in two thousand and eight,

1039
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:24,079
and he wouldn't shut up about how Obama was terrible

1040
00:52:24,079 --> 00:52:27,000
and Hillary Clinton was going to save the country. I

1041
00:52:27,079 --> 00:52:29,880
felt like that guy an airplane who commits suppuku having

1042
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:31,840
to listen to Ted Striker go on and on. Right,

1043
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:34,840
Here's the thing, Sam Donaldson, I got to meet a

1044
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,159
few times privately and off the screen, and he turns

1045
00:52:37,159 --> 00:52:39,960
out to be a really nice guy. As partly was

1046
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:41,840
an act, I mean, the sharp elbows of the press

1047
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:44,559
corps in Washington. But and what enjeered me to him

1048
00:52:44,639 --> 00:52:49,079
finally was he brought up to me something that's always

1049
00:52:49,079 --> 00:52:49,679
been on my mind.

1050
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:51,079
Speaker 2: One of Reagan's greatest moments.

1051
00:52:51,119 --> 00:52:55,079
Speaker 4: It was Donaldson in nineteen eighty two, with its full pomposity, saying,

1052
00:52:55,159 --> 00:52:58,920
mister President, you've blamed the deficits on the mistakes of

1053
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:02,360
the past. You take any of the blame yourself. And Reagan,

1054
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:04,800
in his usual way, said, well, yes, Sam, because after all,

1055
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:07,679
for a long time I was a Democrat. And the

1056
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:09,840
press from me erupted and you can find us on YouTube,

1057
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:13,079
the press roomy erupts and laughter. And Donaldson said, Reagan

1058
00:53:13,159 --> 00:53:16,000
humiliated me many times, but that was his greatest humiliation.

1059
00:53:16,079 --> 00:53:18,119
And I thought, good for Sam anyway, Yeah, it's nice,

1060
00:53:18,119 --> 00:53:19,159
and I.

1061
00:53:19,079 --> 00:53:21,679
Speaker 1: Think he Yeah, I'm not sure we have his type anymore,

1062
00:53:21,719 --> 00:53:23,880
because you could disagree with what you took to be

1063
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:26,000
a partisan shading the way he was saying things. But

1064
00:53:26,039 --> 00:53:27,920
there was something more to the man, you know, There

1065
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:31,519
was there was life beyond politics, and you get the

1066
00:53:31,519 --> 00:53:34,360
feeling with a lot of today's resistance core in the

1067
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:37,079
press that there is nothing beyond politics because nothing matters

1068
00:53:37,079 --> 00:53:39,320
more than saving the country from the existential threat to

1069
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:42,960
our democracy that constitutes the current government. So yeah, there's that.

1070
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:45,000
So there's a couple of things we could talk about

1071
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:46,840
before we go out, and one of them, I suppose

1072
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:49,199
is the penny. Trump says he's going to be We're

1073
00:53:49,199 --> 00:53:51,760
done with a penny. And I'm of two minds of this.

1074
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:56,639
You know, you get rid of the penny, and immediately

1075
00:53:56,679 --> 00:53:58,480
everything is rounded up to a nickel or a dime.

1076
00:53:58,599 --> 00:54:02,320
And we all know that. And there is still something

1077
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:07,719
in me that likes the fact that they're still trying

1078
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:09,639
to fool me that an item that is two dollars

1079
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:12,000
and forty nine cents is somehow cheaper than something it's

1080
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:15,519
two fifty, which it is. But that little psychological nine

1081
00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:18,440
is such a part of twentieth century marketing technology, especially.

1082
00:54:18,559 --> 00:54:20,760
I don't know what they're gonna do with gasoline. Gasoline

1083
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:23,800
is constantly moving by increments of pennies. What exactly do

1084
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:27,039
you do about that round up? Round there? If you

1085
00:54:27,159 --> 00:54:28,960
round it up, does that mean that they get the money,

1086
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:31,639
and they're obliged to get you know, all of the

1087
00:54:31,679 --> 00:54:34,800
individual gas stations are obliged to take that extra rounded

1088
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:38,119
up money too. Something philanthropic with it. If they're supposed

1089
00:54:38,119 --> 00:54:39,920
to round down, are they supposed to take the hit?

1090
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:42,599
I don't know. I kind of like the penny for

1091
00:54:42,599 --> 00:54:45,039
that reason, but I can't remember the last time that

1092
00:54:45,079 --> 00:54:50,280
I actually had one, because everything everything is is the

1093
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:52,039
wave of the wave of the phone, the wave of

1094
00:54:52,039 --> 00:54:54,519
the wash, the wave of the card, and it's rare

1095
00:54:54,639 --> 00:54:56,400
that I come away with coins.

1096
00:54:56,679 --> 00:54:59,519
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I'm well, I'm for keeping the penny,

1097
00:54:59,559 --> 00:55:01,519
I think for a bunch of reasons, but one of

1098
00:55:01,519 --> 00:55:04,000
them is it's the different color from the other coins.

1099
00:55:04,440 --> 00:55:06,920
I think getting rid of the penny would be an

1100
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:10,800
implicit concession that we're going to have more inflation, right,

1101
00:55:11,119 --> 00:55:12,760
So the penny's kind of a nuisance for the reasons

1102
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:15,760
you mentioned. I do know that maybe you probably know

1103
00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:17,639
this because your culture may have been that in World

1104
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:20,039
War Two, when we were so short of copper, I

1105
00:55:20,039 --> 00:55:23,119
think it was nineteen forty three, we minted pennies out

1106
00:55:23,119 --> 00:55:25,840
of aluminum because we had lots of that, and maybe

1107
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:27,880
what we ought to do because a penny apparently costs

1108
00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:30,440
more than one cent to make because of copper, and

1109
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:31,679
is expensive, and we.

1110
00:55:31,679 --> 00:55:33,239
Speaker 2: Need it for all of our green energy.

1111
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:36,199
Speaker 4: Forget that for the moment, but maybe we ought to

1112
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:38,639
just reformulate the pennies so that it's made out of

1113
00:55:38,679 --> 00:55:40,519
an alloy, the same way we got rid of silver

1114
00:55:40,599 --> 00:55:42,639
quarters in nineteen sixty five.

1115
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:46,679
Speaker 1: Right the poor, for they were zinc pennies. I remember

1116
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:48,320
the first time I saw one of those, I thought

1117
00:55:48,639 --> 00:55:50,880
I'd seen something from an alternate dimension that had leaked

1118
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:53,039
into mind. It was amazing those things, and I have

1119
00:55:53,119 --> 00:55:56,159
a few of them. The fact that we are now

1120
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:58,960
in a coinless era, or an era that no longer

1121
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,880
really has one choose for them, I think is sad.

1122
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,480
While I don't want to sound like an old fart saying, yeah,

1123
00:56:05,519 --> 00:56:11,039
your kids today, your watches, there is something comforting about

1124
00:56:11,079 --> 00:56:14,239
a pocket full of change. When I was in my twenties,

1125
00:56:14,559 --> 00:56:16,360
if you had a pocket full of quarters, you were

1126
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:18,920
assured of many things. A couple of them and a

1127
00:56:18,960 --> 00:56:20,920
dime and a nickel would buy a pack of cigarettes.

1128
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:22,639
One of them would get you an hour on a

1129
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:25,760
parking meter. One of them would get you three games.

1130
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:27,760
If you were good in a pinball machine. You could

1131
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:29,559
save them up, and you could use them in the wandermant.

1132
00:56:29,599 --> 00:56:33,000
The pennies were exceptionally useful, and when you had a half,

1133
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:36,320
half dollars would occasionally swim into view, but by then

1134
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:38,280
they were working their way out of the system. Along

1135
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:40,679
with a dollar. You didn't see a dollar. And the

1136
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:43,280
quarter had a heartiness to it, and it had an

1137
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:45,960
abiding quality because it had never changed. The way it looked.

1138
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:48,280
Now you would have a dime, and sometimes you'd find

1139
00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:50,440
a liberty head dime, and that would be amazing. It'd

1140
00:56:50,440 --> 00:56:53,519
be worn down like a buffalo nickel, also worn down,

1141
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:57,039
and you could almost sense the weight and the passage

1142
00:56:57,079 --> 00:56:59,000
and the length of history by looking at this thing

1143
00:56:59,039 --> 00:57:02,480
and wondering how many pockets and hands and drawers that

1144
00:57:02,519 --> 00:57:07,880
it clattered through. But that said, you know, nowadays our currency,

1145
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:11,519
the quarter, is simply this vehicle for endless tinkering and revision.

1146
00:57:11,639 --> 00:57:13,599
Let's make all fifty states and people will collect them

1147
00:57:13,639 --> 00:57:17,480
and never spend them. Let's slap somebody on who hasn't

1148
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:20,039
had a coin. Let's make it gold. Let's do this,

1149
00:57:20,239 --> 00:57:23,760
and it just has no place in the modern imagination

1150
00:57:23,800 --> 00:57:26,199
as it did before, except when it's clattering out of

1151
00:57:26,199 --> 00:57:29,519
a Vegas machine into a bucket. So and even then

1152
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:32,159
people are using cards and slapping in cards and slapping

1153
00:57:32,239 --> 00:57:34,920
in cards and slapping I hate to be, you know,

1154
00:57:35,639 --> 00:57:41,320
an old coot about these things, but I'm I guess

1155
00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:44,519
if I have to all defend the quarter against all

1156
00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:47,119
critics and comers, and if that means I have to

1157
00:57:47,119 --> 00:57:49,480
make common cause with the penny advocates, then I will

1158
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:53,360
do just that. Well, that brings us to the top

1159
00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:55,000
of the hour, and that brings us to the end

1160
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:57,880
of the show. Because, unlike some people who just have

1161
00:57:58,079 --> 00:58:00,920
absolutely no care as to how long they ramble and bladder.

1162
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:02,719
Even though Steven, I know that we could go another

1163
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:05,559
fifteen twenty minutes, an hour is a good time to

1164
00:58:05,599 --> 00:58:07,960
say we are done, like we were a network, like

1165
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:11,199
we were the Ed Sullivan Show, you know, or you

1166
00:58:11,199 --> 00:58:14,159
know some network program. You hear the sound in the

1167
00:58:14,199 --> 00:58:16,760
back of your head, the toll at the top, hit

1168
00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:19,320
the post, get out, Let people get on with their lives.

1169
00:58:20,199 --> 00:58:21,519
Of course, I've just made it an hour and a

1170
00:58:21,559 --> 00:58:25,079
minute by going through all that. We thank our sponsors

1171
00:58:25,119 --> 00:58:28,239
Quality of SANDIELYTX and hr Bamboo, support them and you

1172
00:58:28,280 --> 00:58:30,360
support us, We hope you give us a good review

1173
00:58:30,360 --> 00:58:32,320
wherever you happen to give good podcast reviews. And we

1174
00:58:32,360 --> 00:58:34,400
want you to go, of course, to ricochet dot com,

1175
00:58:34,440 --> 00:58:37,159
where the member feed is available for a very small

1176
00:58:37,159 --> 00:58:39,960
amount of quarters, and it will introduce you to a sane,

1177
00:58:40,159 --> 00:58:42,320
center right, civil world that you've been looking for on

1178
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:45,239
the internet ever since you plug the damn thing in Stephen.

1179
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:47,679
It's great. I'm James Linax. This has been the Ricochet

1180
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:50,800
Podcast seven hundred and twenty eight and we'll see everybody

1181
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:57,760
in the comments at Ricochet four point zero. Ricochet, Yeah,

1182
00:58:59,599 --> 00:59:00,639
join the conversation.